The first in a series of articles looking at the history of the major players in our industry, this time we investigate the story of Canon, as the manufacturer smiles cheerfully down on us as business leader.

N.B. There’s rather a lot to cover here, and although I could write thousands of words about Canon calculators, Canon photocopiers and Canon printers, and I’m sure you'd LOVE to read them, it’s probably best we stick mainly with cameras for brevity.

Mmm, Kwanon

From humble beginnings – Before they were Canon, Precision Optical Instruments laboratory was founded in Japan in 1933. The company produced the Kwanon in 1934 – a prototype for its first camera, and the first ever 35mm camera with a focal-plane-based shutter, built for speed and interchangeable lenses. It was technically a copy of the Leica II camera, with a sprinkling of features from the Zeiss Ikon Contax camera. Named after Kwannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, according to the Canon Museum website they were “hoping the deity would share her benevolence as they pursued their dream to produce the world’s finest camera.” Seems a fitting starting point to me.

With a little help from my friends...

Canon’s first production camera, the Hansa Canon arrived in 1936. They didn’t have the facilities to create precision glass at this time, so you might be surprised to learn that the lens on this camera was a 50mm F/3.5 lens Nikkor, handled by Nippon Kogaku, Nikon. They may be great rivals now, but their relationship began with collaboration.

Rebirth

Canon made Leica-style cameras all the way up to the mid-50s and enjoyed huge growth in the process. Then in 1956, The company announced something far more original - the Canon VT. Canon produced multiple editions of this innovative rangefinder camera, with the T standing for trigger in a revolutionary faster bottom trigger advance. Whilst not especially successful at the time, these cameras were Canon’s first real statement of intent - essentially abandoning iteration in favour of innovation.

Canon was ready to enter the cine market too. Rival organisation Eastman Kodak had released the 8mm Kodak Brownie, and it was enormously popular when then Canon president Takeshi Mitarai paid a visit to the US. Mitarai felt this was a market Canon could thrive in, getting the boffins on the case immediately. The Canon Cine 8T arrived in late 1956, and in releasing it, Canon was guaranteed to play a huge role in the Super 8 movement a decade later.

Photography for all

Following a bit of in-house soul-searching as to the direction of the business, it was decided that Canon should be making affordable bodies as well as premium ones, so that everyone could enjoy photography. This pivotal decision led to the creation of a brand new 35mm lens-shutter camera, the Canonet. Canon’s competitors were apparently so livid the camera was going to cost less than 20,000 yen, the launch was delayed as it was argued anti-competitive! Finally, the Canonet launched in 1961, and by 1963, they’d sold a million of them.

This advert was created for a manufacturing deal between Bell and Howell
of North Carolina and Canon.

 

Right around this time, several companies including Canon and Nikon were busy perfecting the SLR. Up until the late 50s, early 60s, the tech just wasn’t there to make such a camera reliably and cost-effectively, but all this changed with the Canonflex and its range of R-series lenses. Canon’s own museum site tells us:

"Although the principle of the SLR camera had been known as long ago as the camera, technological problems had been left unsolved for many years in the area of making the camera as light and easy-to-use as the rangefinder camera. With several technical innovations including the pentaprism, the quick return mirror, and the automatic aperture control mechanism, the time had finally arrived for a practical 35mm SLR camera for all types of interchangeable lenses.”

Cameras and film standards came and went, and Canon’s success had allowed it to diversify to the point that being known as a camera-specific company just didn’t work anymore. In 1969, the manufacturer rebranded as Canon Inc.

Born in the 70s

Fast forward to the mid-70s, and Canon arrived in style with the space-age AE-1. This was the beginning of the digital era, the first camera with an embedded CPU, offering battery-powered auto exposure. The introduction of electronics meant the number of parts required to produce the camera reduced dramatically, making high end performance significantly more affordable. Notable accessories included the Canon Winder A, giving the camera the capability to shoot continuous at an eye-watering 2 frames per second!

Video wasn’t far behind, and Canon joined the party in the mid-80s with the Canovision 8VM-E1. Offering 6x zoom and f/1.2 aperture in a light and portable body, it would be the start of countless innovations in camcorder and cinema technology for years to come.

The Canovision launched in 1985 and is the most 1985 thing I have ever seen.

The birth of EOS

In 1987, Canon announced a brand-new system, the Electro-Optical System (EOS). The Canon EOS 650 was the first camera in the series, and alongside Canon’s new motorised EF mount, introduced high quality, effective autofocus to Canon cameras for the first time. The EF lens design was a true game-changer for Canon, offering extreme speed and performance, complete with a fully-electronic ultrasonic motor, with a reasonable price point to boot.

A double page ad for Canon's 650. You can pick these up for £20 on eBay, and attach any EF lens to it. Tempted?

 

Let’s get digital

In the mid-90s, the camcorder industry moved away from analog video systems and towards digital (DV) formats, and Canon was heavily involved in driving the format forward with its Hi-8 camcorders like the Movie Boy, offering image stabilisation and the eye-control autofocus concepts you can now find in the EOS R3.

Around the same time, Canon was investing in the digital stills camera market too, and in partnership with Kodak, released the EOS DCS, then the PowerShot 600. These were Canon’s first cameras to use cards as recording media, and though we were some way from these cameras having the fidelity or capacity to replace film, the seeds had been well and truly sewn.

The cream of the crop

Throughout the late 90s and the 00s, Canon produced some truly classic cameras. Highlights included:

The EOS 3 - Released in 1998 and widely adored by both pros and amateurs alike with its 45 point AF and 7fps shooting if you hooked up the Powerdrive Booster (which sounds like a spaceship).

The EOS 5D - Canon did away with the integrated battery grip for a sleeker, half-height styling offering bulletproof build quality, with the mark II model capable of churning out Full HD video.

The EOS 350D - In 2005, Canon followed in the footsteps of its designers decades previously, by producing a genuinely decent budget option, helping introduce a whole generation of youngsters to photography.

In the pro market - Canon’s most popular cameras included the 5D series and the 1D series respectively, the most recent models of which are still extremely popular with pro shooters today, regardless of the mirrorless boom.

The silver screen

Into the 2010s, and Canon was busy refreshing its cinema offerings, getting the ball rolling with the EOS C300. Canon cine cameras would prove popular in Hollywood, with the C300 line being used alongside Arri cameras in productions like Her and Black Panther. The stills master EOS 1D X even got a look in when used as the sole camera on Wes Anderson’s stop-motion canine love-letter, Isle of Dogs – 80 cameras were used in total, with DOP Tristan Oliver explaining the challenge of shooting puppets:

"If you're doing a close up, instead of your actor being six feet from the camera, your puppet could be six inches from it. This means you're working right down at the minimum focus end, or even into the macro end, of a lens. When I've got a puppet right up to the minimum point of the lens, if I'm at f/16 or f/22, I might just about have full focus from nose to ear and everything else is mush."

Isle of Dogs was Wes Anderson's second movie involving the meticulous manipulation of puppets, after The Fantastic Mr Fox. Both are brilliant, Wes Anderson is a tweed-wearing genius.

 

Mirror, mirror...

Canon entered the mirrorless market in 2012 with the EOS M, a smaller version of the 650D with the mirror removed and dedicated lenses. As market leader and fully aware of the technology’s limitations at the time, Canon stuck to making enthusiast-level mirrorless cameras for the next few years, biding its time and innovating behind the scenes to make sure when its first professional body arrived, it would be a genuinely compelling proposition. In 2018, the company announced the EOS R.

The EOS R may have received a luke-warm reception from some circles when it arrived, but the more time that passes since it's release, the more important it feels in shaping what came next.

With the 5D mk IV as a template, the Canon EOS R was supported with brand new RF glass – lenses designed specifically for mirrorless, offering incredible fidelity in part due to the lack of a mirror allowing them to be mounted far closer to the camera sensor. The video side of things was a little wobbly in this first camera but has been steadily improved upon since.

Cooking with gas

Most would argue Canon really ‘arrived’ in the mirrorless world with the introduction of the EOS R5 and EOS R6 respectively, with the 45-megapixel R5 offering stunning image quality, 8k video, and crucially for those aggravated by poor, laggy electronic viewfinders, a stunning 5.76 million dot OLED EVF with a 120fps refresh rate.

Since then, Canon has bolstered its arsenal even further with the utterly rapid EOS R3 designed with sports, wildlife and journalism in mind, capable of 30fps RAW shooting. More recently, Canon announced the R7 and R10, two new APS-C cameras, along with a new cropped RF lens system to support them.

In terms of video, Canon's mirrorless cameras have always performed well, but recent offerings focus on really mastering motion. The EOS C70 joined Canon's cine line as boxy, modular hybrid super 35mm, and the EOS R5 C arrived with the intention of being a master of all trades - an R5 with full-frame 8K video and no time limits or overheating in sight.

We've been using an R5 this week for stills and video product promos in our studio, and we were really struck by how much of a proper pro outing it feels - weighty, snappy and with fantastic AF in low light - it's been a pleasure!

Living in the present

With each new camera comes exciting innovation – stacked sensors, 8k internal video recording, lightning-fast autofocus that can spot car, animal or human at 100 yards. These concepts were thoroughly space-age just a handful of years ago, and this potted history of Canon helps show exactly why the company sits at the top of the digital camera tree when it comes to market share.

Having said all that, Canon is certainly being kept honest – Sony has made great strides in the market of late with its alpha range, and Nikon’s recent Z 9 shocked the world when it arrived in 2021.

Whatever the future holds, Canon has been following the wonderfully titled ‘Excellent Global Corporation Plan’ since the mid-90s. Introduced by head honcho Fujio Mitarai, it has seen prolific growth and innovation, and long may it continue.

For Hireacamera's full range of Canon products and accessories, just head here:
https://www.hireacamera.com/canon-camera-lens-hire/

 

Alex Parker 16th October 2022